Thorn in My Side
by Southamerican Eggplant
Summary: Shepard is trapped in a hospital room with her thoughts, with a man she hates, and some truths she'd rather not confront. Mary Shepard is steel, but Saren Arterius is gravity itself.


Mary sat still in her chair. Her feet were propped up on the side of Saren's hospital bed, to show that she wasn't worried about his well being or anything stupid and domestic like that, but they were free of her smelly boots to show that she _did_ care, just a little, and that she was very sorry for hitting him in the face with a foot of metal piping.

His face was all she was responsible for, thank Christ. The rest of him, torn up like sandwich meat, wasn't her fault. It looked horrible, even under layers of bandages and slimy medi gel.

She wanted a cigarette. She always wanted one, but thinking about him writhing around on the ground screaming like an animal made the need especially intense.

They fought, on that little radiation-beat moon, like they always did, and things went to hell, like they always did. She screamed at him until her throat went hoarse. _Fight, you fucker. Fight it,_ please, _it doesn't have to be this way._ The sound Sovereign had made was heavy and hard and tore right through her head and almost popped her little ear drums. A hundred different voices had all whispered to lay down, to throw her weapon away, to bust a pipe in her helmet and let the pressure suck out her eyeballs. It was worse than any nightmare she could dream up— and even through all of that noise, she could hear him screaming.  
>She'd once dug her thumb into a batarian's eyeball, but even that was just a whimper next to the noises Saren made.<p>

Her fingers twitched to her pocket. She'd tossed her pack of smokes in the garbage on the way into the hospital, damn it all.

Pink light from the billboard outside the window slanted across the floor, cutting through the dark. Saren's breathing was shallow. The doctor said he was stable, but he didn't look like it— there were too many bags of weirdly-colored fluids hooked up to him. His heart rate monitor (did turians have hearts?) was too quiet.

"You really got fucked up out there," she told him. "Stroked out and pulled your own robo-guts out of yourself. Had an aneurysm and everything."

His eyelids fluttered.

"I don't know why I keep sticking my neck out for you," she continued. "I hate your guts. You shot people I care about, blew shit up… You've just been a huge pain in the ass, you know?" She moved her feet to the floor so she could rest her chin on the rail of the bed. She didn't think he was conscious— all he really did was breathe. That was okay, though. That was all that mattered right now.

"Jesus. I'm sitting in your hospital room. Hell, I might even pay your bill, if it's not covered. I don't know what kind of insurance you have."

He said nothing. Unconscious people were pretty good at that.

"I don't have any. If I do get shot up or toasted or whatever, I'd appreciate it if you left me there." She sucked in a breath. "'Cause this… This is just miserable. You couldn't look sadder if they put a dog cone on you. And, I don't know why it's fucking with me." She paused. "Do you?"

No answer. He looked pretty dead with his arms by his sides, so she moved one to rest on his stomach.

"There. That's not as icky." She stared at him for a minute. Then she figured she should get some water to wet her dry throat, so she got up and went to the water cooler in the hall. It was old, small, and beat up, but it was clean, and the switches worked. She flipped a switch and watched the water patter into her styrofoam cup.

She couldn't wait for it to fill all the way up. She kept thinking she heard Saren flatlining, so she headed back into his room with her cup not even half full.

She leaned against the wall.

"You're gonna be tender as a boiled lobster when you wake up," Mary said softly.

_Stop talking to him. You are fucking gross— what are you,_ married? She sipped from her cup.

"Get better, man. You can't die like this. That's a really, really shitty way to go. People like you and me, we're supposed to go up in a blaze of glory. Not like an old grandma, with bandages and catheters up the wazoo. You're tougher than that."

She really hoped so. If he wasn't tough enough to stand up to a Reaper, how could she be? She couldn't even admit it to herself, but he was stronger than she could _ever_ be. As long as he was alive, she knew that she stood a chance too— Mary Shepard was steel, but Saren Arterius was gravity itself.

"It's… It's just gonna be shitty, if you die, even after everything," she told him. "I'm trying to save you from all this. You're not allowed to just quit. That's cheating."

Saren took a breath, then let it out. And out. And out. For one dizzying minute, she thought it was his last, but he inhaled again.

The tape securing his IV was wrinkled. She reached out to smooth it down, but his hand closed around her wrist. She froze. He pushed her hand back into her lap before returning his own to his stomach, touch was as weak as a baby bird's. She thought she heard him say "shut up."

Mary rested her head in the crook of her elbow and cried.


End file.
